Cash released her first single in 1979, a duet with Bobby Bare called "We Don't Need No Memories Hangin' 'Round". Two years later, she had her first country No. 1 (and the biggest commercial hit of her career), "Seven Year Ache". Although Cash was a prominent country star throughout the '80s, alongside fellow decade-defining artists Emmylou Harris, Juice Newton, and Dolly Parton, her music was anything but traditional: She topped the charts with songs written not only by herself, but by her father ("Tennessee Flat Top Box"), John Hiatt ("The Way We Make A Broken Heart"), Tom Petty ("Never Be You") and The Beatles ("I Don't Want To Spoil The Party"), "I Don't Know Why You Don't Want Me", which won her a Grammy in 1985, and "It's Such A Small World", a 1987 duet with Rodney Crowell on his album Diamonds & Dirt, provided further hits. A sampling of these songs and more are included on the compilation Hits 1979-1989. In 1979, she married Rodney Crowell, who was to produce most of her hit records. Their stormy marriage lasted until 1992; its break-up is chronicled in Cash's Interiors and in Crowell's album Life Is Messy. Cash later married John Leventhal, who produced her albums The Wheel, 10 Song Demo, Rules Of Travel, and Black Cadillac.

To date, Cash has had more than twenty top 40 country singles, including eleven chart-toppers, but none since 1990, and she has left Nashville in both spirit and body to pursue her artistic vision. Although she had recorded all of her hits for Columbia Records' Nashville division, she released 10 Song Demo for the pop division of Capitol. Cash resurfaced in 2003 with Rules of Travel. The album features guest appearances by Sheryl Crow and Steve Earle, as well as a tune penned by Joe Henry and The Wallflowers' Jakob Dylan. Cash's latest album, entitled Black Cadillac, was released by Capitol Records in January 2006 to critical acclaim. Many of the songs were written by Cash and address the losses (within a 24-month span) of her step-mother, her father, her step-sister (Rosey Nix Adams) and then finally her mother on Cash's fiftieth birthday.

Rosanne Cash (born May 24, 1955) is an American singer-songwriter and author. She is the eldest daughter of the late country music singer Johnny Cash and his first wife, Vivian Liberto Cash Distin.

Although Cash is often classified as a country artist, her music draws on many genres, including folk, pop, rock and blues. In the 1980s, she had a string of chart-topping singles, which crossed musical genres and landed on both C&W and Top 100 charts, the most commercially successful being her 1981 breakthrough hit "Seven Year Ache", which topped the U.S. country singles charts and reached the Top 30 on the U.S. pop singles charts. In 1990, Cash released Interiors, a spare, introspective album which signaled a break from her pop country past. The following year Cash ended her marriage and moved from Nashville to New York City, where she continues to write, record and perform. Since 1991 she has released five albums, written two books and edited a collection of short stories. Her fiction and essays have been published in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The Oxford-American, New York Magazine, and various other periodicals and collections.

She won a Grammy in 1985 for "I Don't Know Why You Don't Want Me," and has received nine other Grammy nominations. She has had 11 #1 country hit singles, 21 Top 40 country singles and two gold records.